KIRKUS REVIEW

A fictional work based on real-life events in the life of the author’s sister.

In the fictional version, Katie falls in love with Jack when she is 13 and makes a promise she will love him forever. He reciprocates, and they are a happy couple throughout high school and manage to get through four years at separate colleges. But when Katie wants to take a job in Arizona counseling disturbed young women in a therapeutic wilderness program, Jack finds it hard to wait for her return. She visits but must go back to help a young woman who needs her. He meets someone he doesn’t love like he loves Katie, but he wants to settle down and have a family. By the time Katie realizes she is pregnant with their child, Jack is married to someone else. Katie’s parents do not condemn her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. They want, in fact, to have and care for a grandchild, but whether from a feeling of inadequacy or disappointment that Jack failed to wait, Katie decides to give the little girl to an anonymous couple who have been trying to have a child for years. She meets another man she’d like to love as much as Jack, but before she can open a new chapter in her life, she must see Jack to discuss and close the last chapter. In the midst of these developments, the daughter they continue to think about and love for 13 years finds them. Lives are rearranged, and cherished dreams are finally realized. In a forward to readers, the author characterizes her younger sister’s decision to give a child up for adoption as courageous and heart-rending. She goes on to tell us that when this child, her niece, later found her birth mother’s family via Facebook, she was inspired to write a novel that explores the emotions and life changes that such a miraculous reunion can bring to a family.

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